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4 Emotional Workouts for Anxiety Relief and Resilience

Hadley’s Intro:  How often do you feel anxious, stressed, overwhelmed?

Get the antidotes in a guest post courtesy of The Washington Post

When you are anxious and stressed, you could add
an “emotional workout” to your self-care
regimen
By Juli Fraga

Juli Fraga, Psy.D., is a psychologist with a
private practice in San Francisco.

As the pandemic continues, so does the mental
health crisis. Many of us are struggling with the
grief and trauma the coronavirus unleashed, as
well as stressors such as mass shootings and
climate change. With so much suffering, there is a
greater need for therapy, but many
psychotherapists — myself included — can’t
meet the rising demand.

When new patients contact me, I help those in
crisis find emergency care and connect others with
counselors or group support. But when capital
“S” stressors such as unrelenting anxiety,
depleting depression and insomnia roar loud, some
patients want more immediate help. This might
explain why many prospective patients ask me:
“What can I do now to improve my mental
health?”

One possible solution, says clinical psychologist
Emily Anhalt, is to add an “emotional workout”
to your self-care regimen. “Just like working
out prevents high blood pressure and heart
disease, emotional fitness can be a proactive
stance toward stress management,” says Anhalt,
the co-founder of Coa, a gym for mental health.

In Coa’s virtual classes, Anhalt and her team
teach exercises called “emotional push-ups,”
which are small ways to work on yourself each day.
“The purpose is to strengthen your mental health
muscles so that you’re in a better position to
face life’s challenges,” she says.

Self-care tools can be helpful, especially when
barriers such as high-deductible insurance plans,
high co-pays and living in remote areas can make
mental health care difficult to afford or access.
And while the pandemic isn’t solely to blame for
the lack of therapists, it’s certainly made
things worse, says Vaile Wright, the senior
director of health-care innovation at the American
Psychological Association.

This is why it’s so hard to find mental health
counseling right now

With too few mental health resources, we need
innovative ways to make psychological care more
accessible, she says. If you’re waiting to see a
therapist, can’t afford mental health care or
have recently finished therapy, emotional
exercises are one way to strengthen your
psychological muscles. While these workouts
aren’t meant to replace individual or group
therapy, Anhalt says they can promote resilience
and help you feel empowered.

Here are some expert-backed exercises to help you
begin.

  1. Overwhelmed? Schedule a ‘worry date.’
    The uptick in world turmoil is understandably
    rattling our mental health. Wright says the near
    constant “bad news” cycle and social media
    discussions can heighten our feelings of worry and
    overwhelm.

Researchers state that worry has a cognitive
component, which is why ruminations often spur on
troubling thoughts that play on repeat. One way to
cope with this distress is to schedule a “worry
date.” “Set a time on your daily calendar to
worry, obsess and ruminate,” Anhalt suggests.
During this date, take 10 to 15 minutes to jot
down your woes.

In her book, “Cards Against Anxiety,” mental
health educator and author Pooky Knightsmith says
a date with worry can stop this uneasy feeling
from becoming the boss and taking over.

8 ways to feel less anxious about things beyond
your control

2.  Annoyed with a loved one? Practice the
‘self-reflection push-up.’
When you’re frustrated because your partner went
to a concert maskless or a co-worker stole the
spotlight, it’s natural to see the annoying
party as the problem. But another approach is to
take the opportunity to learn about yourself,
Anhalt says.

Feeling hurt, annoyed or angry with someone
else’s behavior might reflect something we
dislike about ourselves. To examine this
possibility, Anhalt suggests practicing an
exercise she calls the “self-reflection
push-up.” This push-up uses the “3 Js, which
stand for join, jealous and judge” to guide you.

Ask yourself if the other person’s behavior is
something you also do (join), are envious of
(jealous) or criticize (judge). For instance, if
you’re annoyed with your friend for being
selfish, you might realize that you’ve behaved
the same way. Putting the spotlight on our actions
allows us to take responsibility, Anhalt says.

When it comes to building close relationships,
research shows that self-awareness can increase
cognitive empathy, which is our ability to
understand someone else’s emotions from their
perspective.

3.  Feeling down? Befriend tough emotions.
As humans, we’re wired to avoid pain. When
uncomfortable emotions such as anger or sadness
arise, we may try to distract ourselves from
feeling bad. We may scroll through social media,
drink an extra glass of wine or binge on Netflix.
These tactics are called “defenses,” which are
thoughts and behaviors that keep us from feeling
the unbearable. But when we solely rely on
defenses, we avoid feeling our emotions, which
hinders our ability to process them.

When upset emotions arise, try to befriend your
feelings. Start by naming your emotions, a
technique psychologists call “affect
labeling.” You can also become a detective by
exploring where your feelings show up in your
body. For example, I ask my patients, “Where do
you feel that emotion?” and “What might it be
trying to tell you?” The goal isn’t to alter
the emotion, but to bring awareness to how it
feels in the moment.

It’s natural to feel happy and sad at the same
time. Here’s when it can become a problem.

A 2018 research review states that “focusing on
our feelings, without trying to change them” can
help ease distress. This “in-the-moment”
mind-set is what dialectical-behavior therapist
Marsha Linehan calls “radical acceptance,” and
it’s one way to stop pain from persisting. Many
people assume that radical acceptance hinders
change, but this liberating stance can escort
transformation, says clinical psychologist Jenny
Taitz.

4. Reeling with anxiety? Exercise curiosity.
About 32 percent of U.S. adults showed symptoms of
anxiety disorder or depressive disorder in the
week before Aug. 8, the Household Pulse Survey
showed, according to the Centers for Disease
Control and Prevention. For a smaller percentage
of people, anxiety symptoms are a mental illness
such as generalized anxiety disorder, which
affects approximately 3 percent of Americans, or
social anxiety disorder, which affects closer to 7
percent of the general population.

If you want to disarm your anxiety, adopting a
curious mind-set may help. When fear and
uncertainty strike, we’re often quick to ask,
“Why is this happening?” explains psychiatrist
and neuroscientist Judson Brewer, author of
“Unwinding Anxiety” and medical director of
Sharecare. “The mind latches onto this ‘why’
question because we believe that uncovering the
answer will fix our anxiety,” Brewer explains.
But in reality, this mind-set can keep us feeling
helpless and stuck. To climb out of this rabbit
hole, try to enter the “anxiety-free zone,”
the neuroscientist recommends.

How to make friends with your inner critic

One grounding exercise is to sit down, look at
your feet, and ask, which “foot is warmer than
the other?” This question helps spark curiosity,
Brewer says. This wondrous feeling also can open
the mind to possibilities, allowing us to see our
situations in a different light, research shows.
“When anxiety throws us for a loop, replacing
‘Why is this happening?’ with ‘What is
happening?’ can pull us out of the anxiety-laden
‘why zone,’ ” Brewer says.

Mental health exercises can teach us to better
manage our worrisome thoughts and upset feelings.
These workouts may also help us think about our
discomfort in a different way. “Symptoms like
anxiety and depression are the body’s alarm
system,” Anhalt says. “By trying to understand
them, we can uncover the root cause of our
suffering.”

If you’re looking for additional mental health
exercises, Wondermind offers a free newsletter
with mental fitness tips, Coa offers a
complimentary 15-minute emotional fitness class,
and Liberate provides wellness classes to help
people cope with stress and burnout.

********************************************

Staying emotionally fit helps create  happy, sexy love

that lasts,

Hadley Finch

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